Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean comes running out of the box on the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active – the latest Android version available as of this writing. As is always the case with Samsung smartphones, the interface has been customized heavily with a layer of TouchWiz Nature UX, bringing along plenty of extra functionality and visual flare.

Notification bar toggle buttons, lock screen shortcuts and widgets – all of these are present on the Galaxy S4 Active, along with a handful of Samsung's exclusive features. These include Smart Stay, which does not turn off the screen as long as the user is still looking at it, and Multi Window support, allowing one to use two apps side by side. Contact-less gesture controls are also enabled, meaning that one can flip through a photo album, change songs, or answer calls by waving their hand above the screen. The volume up button can be set to activate the LED light on the phone's back for the times when a proper flashlight isn't around.

Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean comes running out of the box on the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active

On the software side, Samsung has loaded goodies like S Translator, which can interpret foreign languages, the S Travel guide to plan your next holiday with, S Health for tracking your workout progress, Group Play for instant content sharing between Samsung devices, and more. Since an IR blaster is available on the smartphone, it can be used to remotely control your TV or home theater system.

Since the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active comes with a pretty large display, the on-screen keyboard is pretty comfortable to type on, especially when used with two thumbs. There's even enough space to add an extra row for all the digits instead of placing them in a separate screen. Typos were rare once we got used to the keyboard's layout, and the auto-complete feature often comes in handy.

On-screen keyboard

Processor and memory:

The Samsung Galaxy S4 Active is a powerful device. It comes with a 1.9GHz, quad-core Snapdragon 600 SoC and 2GB of RAM, so performance is not an issue no matter what you throw at the handset. Anything runs flawlessly, from 3D games and heavy web pages, to any CPU- or GPU-intensive application you can think of. Yet for some reason, the benchmark results aren't as good as those from, let's say, the Samsung Galaxy S4, which is powered by more or less the same hardware. Nevertheless, the Active's real-life performance is great, and that's what truly matters.

Quadrant Standard

AnTuTu

GLBenchmark 2.5 (Egypt HD)

Vellamo(HTML5 / Metal)

Samsung Galaxy S4 Active

11854

16896

3538 / 31 fps

1406 / 692

Samsung Galaxy S4

12078

24701

4437 / 39 fps

1702/704

Sony Xperia Z

8221

20835

3382

2198/626

LG Optimus G

7669

9565

We can't complain about the storage space present on the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active – about 11GB are available out of the 16GB on board. It is far from plenty, of course, but it should be good enough, at least at first. Users who need additional space, be it for carrying music, photos, or videos, can get it by installing a microSD card.

Web browser and connectivity:

Browsing the web using the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active is a joy since it is equipped with a large, high-res display. The web browser is fast and functional, with support for multiple windows, embedded YouTube videos, along other gimmicks like smart scroll for panning by tilting the phone and air gestures for navigating without having to touch the screen.

Browsing the web using the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active is a joy

Connectivity-wise, the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active has you covered. It comes with Bluetooth 4.0, GPS with GLONASS support, NFC, HSPA+ at 42Mbps, and LTE. The FM radio, however, has been omitted.

In theory, this camera should be better because less pixels on a tiny sensor should equal less noise. 4mp is too little and 13mp is too much. This should be the sweet spot. They might have attempted to make this better and failed or maybe 13mp is too noisy underwater. Or they could be just making sure this doesn't cost more to produce than the GS4.

the only thing i prefer in Samsung Galaxy is their Super AMOLED displays, since this have TFT display I can say my luxury-looking phone (Xperia Z) is much better than the tough- or metal-looking phone maybe?!

I agree! Most handsomely-specd midrange Androids only get an average of 8. The Sony Xperia SP only got an 8, the LG Optimus F7 an 8 too, the Optimus L9 a 7.5, the GS4 mini got an 8.5 and the Samsung Galaxy Grand an 8 too. It seems that WP doesn't need very huge processors, gpu and ram to run buttery smooth, and the cameras are also great. Windows Phones are indeed very well optimised!

actually Android AOSP doesnt need much to be buttery smooth... even at 1 GHZ processor and 500MB ram you could still run Android 4.2.2 ... its only when the touchwiz and other skins on top that slow the system down along with all that bloatware they just love to spoon feed us.

10.SleepingOz (unregistered)

What did you expect? Better hardware, screen, CPU, battery etc.. and it runs on Android 4.2 on top! But cm'on, you don't say it out loud, dude.. You'll make the nokia fanboys even more butthurt than they were yesterday.

How is a stronger built, better looking S4 goes below 9.0? Feels a bit like PA didn't dare giving it the same score in the fear of the anti-Samsung scum predictably calling for bias.

I'm very much interested in this phone, more so than in the S4, which's glossy fingerprint plastic is not my thing. The only setback I see here is the lack of 13MP cam, but it still deserves a 9.0 if everything else is there AND water & dust resistance.

Better looking is not true for everyone. I personally think that the active is too big and how compact and light the GS4 is, especially for a phone with a 5 inch 1080p screen, makes the GS4 desirable.

In fact, that is probably why Samsung is such a big success. They make sleek, thin, compact for their dimensions products and still manage to fit in huge batteries. Everybody sees this, it is just the Nokia, Apple, and HTC fans that can't see this.

The GS4 Active ignores those strengths and go after the light plastic haters, which are just jealous HTC and Nokia fans. I would rate the GS4 higher than this easily. I don't need water, dust proofing, and a heavier phone. Light and thin as long as it is durable and has a decent sized battery is the way to go.

I have the galaxy s3 and the galaxy rugby pro (waterproof cell).im really interested in this samsung galaxy s4 active. But I bet they will come out with a samsung galaxy s4 active pro...I would like to see some comparisons to see if I should upgrade either of my phone to this.be nice to see a red active.

Interesting phone and launched at an interesting time when S4 was gaining ground. The physical buttons are tacky and the phone would have done with capacitive buttons. Design wise don't think it can get better than the glass wrap of Sony.

in the past burst mode had better quality but with the update even normal mode look better than burst mode

the update also include system performance improvements as well as re-calibrated screen colors and white balance settings. There's also a new Mini Apps icon, new keyboard skin, new design for some widgets, notification light on/off toggle, the soft. Finally the navigation keys background color has been changed to black from grey.

Well, it could be a dream-come-true, as my husband was counting down days before the Galaxy S4 Active was released in stores. And it looked and felt just right and great, until we gave it a "dip test": in our community pool at depth ~10 inches we took two 1-min videos about 3 minutes apart.

The camera lenses got fogged, hardware buttons got disabled and the charger port stopped working. (yes, we did ensure the USB charger port was properly plugged at the time of submerging). The phone's camera was switched to "Aqua mode". Despite all the advised precautions, the phone had leaked water in.

The AT&T refused to exchange it claiming it was ***damaged by water*** (how unexpected for a phone advertised to take underwater pictures!!!).

Samsung customer and tech support first reaction was "WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU COULD PUT IT IN WATER?

The two reps we spoke to so far made it sound as it was our fault the phone got water.

After a number of times "checking with managers" they requested us to bring the damaged phone for evaluation to repair services (who were notified in the ticket that "we accidentally dropped it in water")

What is most striking is that Samsung is refusing to admit the phone had a factory-originated problem and their customer service is pushing us around, making us to accept the fact we have to stick with a $700 "waterproof" phone that leaked the day we bought it..

That is an awful, crap-like story. If you do not mind, I would love for you to post here what resolution you got.

This phone is part of a dream for me as well. A top end, durable phone. Would depress me if this ends up a swing and a miss. Something like this would move over to Android from WP, bit only if they stand behind it.

just watch S4 Active video review from pocketnow the video will show you that the screen is useless when wet and if you check Xperia V video review from androidauthority you will see even when the display and fingers wet the reviewer is able to play fruit ninja

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